You might recall that Voltage Pictures has been one of the bigger copyright trolls in the United States, sending out mass "settlement-o-matic" letters to people who download their films (including The Hurt Locker and Dallas Buyers Club) via BitTorrent, threatening them with legal action unless they settle up. Last in 2012 Voltage took their show on the road to Canada, taking aim at independent ISP TekSavvy in the hopes of forcing the ISP to turn over the identities of 2,000 BitTorrent users.

quote:Aalto ordered that before Voltage can send a letter to the alleged downloaders, it must return to court to get the wording of its communications cleared by a case management judge..."Any correspondence sent by Voltage to any subscriber shall clearly state in bold type that no court has yet made a determination that such subscriber has infringed or is liable in any way for payment of damages."

Aalto also declared that Voltage has to pay TekSavvy's legal bills entirely before any data will change hands, and the data can only be used specifically for the letters. Meanwhile, Canadian law professor Michael Geist explains in a blog post how pursuing their copyright troll ambitions in Canada may not be worth the cost of the effort for Voltage.

What Identities?

This would be very easy for TekSavvy to short-circuit. Why ISPs continue to hold on to any more than say, 72 hours of DHCP logs (or any at all) is beyond me. If someone is a real danger or threat, the cops will come knocking within a day or two. Beyond that? Must not have been too big of an issue.

If I ran an ISP, I would have DHCP force a new lease every 12 hours, and keep the logs for 24 hours.

The other problem is that from a lawful access perspective, you'd be up shit creek with the courts and CRTC if you didn't keep logs for any longer. The big boys have been spanked for that in the past and have been told to keep all records for 7 years. Records can benefit you as well!

2014-Feb-25 12:38 pm: ·

NormanSI gave her time to steal my mind awayPremium,MVMjoin:2001-02-14San Jose, CAkudos:12

Re: What Identities?

The other problem is that from a lawful access perspective, you'd be up shit creek with the courts and CRTC if you didn't keep logs for any longer. The big boys have been spanked for that in the past and have been told to keep all records for 7 years.

We actually have one up on the Canadians? My ISP is only keeping records for two weeks.--Norman~Oh Lord, why have you come~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Misleading Headline

I just want to repeat what I've written in the CanBroadband forum that I'm extremely disappointed in the inflammatory and misleading headline of this article.

The headline misleads you into believing Voltage won it all. But the reality is that the judge attached so many conditions to this "victory" that it'll very likely cost Voltage much more money to pursue file traders in court than they'll get back from court victories.

How difficult would it have been to add the words "with a catch" to the headline? By making it seem as if this was a total victory for Voltage, DSLR has sunk down to the fetid level of incumbent-owned mass news media.

Re: Misleading Headline

Wow. Calm down.

I ran out of character space allotted to me in headlines and wanted to get the biggest newsbit out of the way, hoping people actually would, you know, read the article itself that points out in detail how this isn't really a win for Voltage. You honestly think this pro-consumer website (one of very few) wanted to make North America's biggest copyright troll look good?

Thanks for the vote of confidence and compliments. Maybe next time send me an IM suggesting alternate headlines instead of flinging histrionics. That said, I've swapped the headline around a bit within my allotted character space so we're no longer considered vile, diabolical, monsters in your eyes.

Re: Misleading Headline

Sorry, Karl, for jumping on you like that. But when I saw that headline, which was a near-exact duplicate of almost every other headline published during the last couple of days, I simply blew my top. I've become so hostile towards major news outlets for their biased behaviour and slanted reporting, I've allowed that hostility to carry over to this article's original headline.

Cost vs return

Simple Way to keep Voltage from misusing the names

"Aalto also declared that ... the data can only be used specifically for the letters."

All that is needed is for the letters be printed and mailed by a third party (just like mailing list addresses are used by a Mailing Company). The master of the letter is supplied by Voltage to a mailing company and the addresses are supplied on labels by the court. The labels are applied to the letters and mailed. This is standard practice when you rent a mailing list. You supply what is to be mailed and the mailing list owner supplies the labels and does the mailing. The renter never sees the addresses so they have no way to recycle/reuse it. I used to work for such a mailing company so I am familiar with the way it works.